Murder Imperfect

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘So, how was Flo?’ Ben changed the subject.

  ‘Fine. They were having a Maltby Close lunch and the doctor was coming to see that they were all right.’

  ‘They do well down there, don’t they? Perhaps we should sell up here and move in.’

  ‘Come off it. Those little cottages are smaller than this one.’ Libby stopped, aware that this line of conversation could lead to a further discussion about Steeple Farm. ‘But,’ she continued hastily, ‘she did say she thought Amy Taylor might have been the vicar’s daughter.’

  ‘Really?’ Ben said through a mouthful of pudding and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘She wasn’t very clear, but she thought she used to see Amy in that September the war broke out, and she wasn’t there next year. I suppose she’d come back by the time your mum …’ she faltered to a halt.

  ‘Got pregnant,’ Ben finished for her with a grin.

  ‘Well, yes. And stayed around, obviously. But I’m sure her mother left her the house she lived in – which doesn’t sound like a vicar’s daughter, does it? They’d have lived in the vicarage. But she wasn’t living there when she committed suicide,’ said Libby.

  ‘Perhaps the vicar and his wife bought a house here for their retirement?’ suggested Ben. ‘Makes sense, doesn’t it?’

  Libby nodded. ‘Just thought you’d like to know. You still interested?’

  Ben leant back in his chair and wiped his lips with a piece of kitchen roll. ‘Yes. As I said, it’s so close to home. It could have been my mum.’

  ‘But she had a close, supportive family,’ said Libby. ‘Lillian – that was your grandmother’s name, wasn’t it? – and Lenny. And Flo, of course, although she wasn’t family. Amy’s family don’t sound quite as supportive.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Ben. ‘They sent her away, yes, but that would have been for the best in those times. But she came back, and was left the house. So fairly supportive.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ said Libby, pushing her plate away, ‘is why, when the truth came out after she’d killed herself, other people in the village didn’t remember.’

  ‘Perhaps they really didn’t know. If it was given out that she’d gone away for – oh, I don’t know – war work of some kind, which would be highly believable in the circumstances, nobody here would know.’

  ‘Except Maud Burton.’ Libby frowned as she got up to remove the plates. ‘Where was she when all this was going on? Do we know?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Ben. ‘I remember her vaguely, but she wasn’t involved with the Sunday School as Amy was, so I didn’t know her as well.’

  ‘Would your mum know?’

  ‘She might, but again, Flo would be a better bet. She was always up on village gossip. Frank Carpenter was more – well, shall we say – “of the people” than my dad was, so even though my mum came from the same background as Flo, she didn’t mix as much. Besides, most of the villagers resented her at first.’

  ‘Because she was a picker who’d married above her station?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Ben nodded and took his plate of fruit crumble and custard. ‘Are you trying to kill me off with a heart attack?’

  ‘It’s cold, and we need good solid carbohydrates to keep us going,’ said Libby. ‘I am unrepentant.’

  ‘I’m not complaining,’ said Ben, and picked up his spoon.

  After a while, he said ‘Will you talk to Cy in the morning?’

  ‘I can hardly hand over a couple of books in silence,’ said Libby.

  ‘You know what I mean. Are you going to ask him any more about the attacks? Or his history?’

  ‘No.’ Libby looked surprised. ‘I thought …’

  ‘We’d agreed not to? But you said I might as well carry on looking into it, didn’t you?’

  ‘The babies, and fostering, yes.’ She frowned at him. ‘You’ve got the bit between your teeth, now, haven’t you?’

  ‘I told you, I can see now how you get involved. And even if Cy’s background has nothing to do with the attacks, I still want to know about his mum. I want to know what happened to those babies.’

  ‘We know what happened to Josephine. She appears to have had a very ordinary life.’

  ‘But what about her mother? It’s all so sad.’ Ben scraped hopefully at his plate to gather up the last of the custard.

  ‘More?’ asked Libby.

  ‘No, said Ben regretfully, ‘much as I’d like some, I think I might burst.’

  ‘Well, I can’t see that we’re ever going to get any further with Josephine’s background,’ said Libby, standing up and putting her plate into the sink. ‘Sheila told me what she knew, which wasn’t a lot, and that’s about all we’re going to get. We haven’t any reason apart from sheer nosiness to ask any more questions of anyone.’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing you say that!’ Ben shook his head. ‘Talk about pots and kettles.’

  ‘Maybe I’m learning,’ said Libby. ‘The curiosity gland has been removed.’

  Ben raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Oh, yes? I’ll wait and see what happens when you see Cy tomorrow. I’m not betting on it.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  CY HAD AGED. LIBBY found him the next morning sitting in her own favourite saggy chintz-covered chair in Peter and Harry’s sitting room, while Peter worked at the table on his computer.

  ‘Have you heard from Colin yet?’ she asked, after dropping a careful kiss on his cheek.

  ‘The airline rang.’ His voice was weak, sounding more like an old man’s. ‘He’s delayed because of the weather, but he should be home either late tonight or early tomorrow morning. They’ve got a message to him.’

  ‘He’ll be frantic,’ said Libby.

  Cy nodded, winced and put a hand to his bandaged head.

  ‘So, someone came up behind you?’

  ‘Yes. Only one blow, they said, but enough to put me out.’

  ‘They didn’t hang around then? What was the point?’

  ‘The police think they – he or she – heard Sam next door come out and it frightened them off.’

  ‘So what did the police think the attacker meant to do? Just scare you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t think why I was attacked again at all.’ Cy looked as though he was going to cry, and Libby didn’t blame him. ‘Why are they keeping on? It can’t be those kids again, can it?’

  ‘Oh, no! I’d forgotten them,’ said Libby. ‘Of course it can’t. They wouldn’t have both – it was only two, wasn’t it? – got into your garden, or been able to leave quietly. Perhaps it was only one. Or, it’s somebody else. Goodness.’ She frowned. ‘The letter writer, then?’

  ‘There can’t be two lots of people out to get me,’ said Cy.

  ‘And Patrick,’ Libby reminded him. ‘So what have the police said about this gang of youths? Did Sheila give them a description?’

  ‘A very vague one. I don’t think it was a gang. But the police don’t seem to know what’s going on any more than I do.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Libby looked across at Peter. ‘What do you think, Pete?’

  Peter looked over the top of his glasses. ‘I think it’s a homophobe who, for some reason, is picking on you specifically.’

  ‘Well, that’s fairly obvious,’ said Libby. ‘But why?’

  ‘How do I know?’ Irritably, Peter turned back to his screen.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Libby quietly to Cy. ‘He can be very grumpy.’

  ‘I heard that,’ said Peter.

  ‘And I’ve known him quite a long time, too,’ said Cy with a small smile. ‘I know what he’s like.’

  Libby glanced back at Peter and saw him smiling.

  ‘Well, this attack will have stepped up the police investigation, so there’s nothing more that I can do,’ said Libby. ‘I brought you a couple of books.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Cy, although he didn’t look at them. Libby cast around for another topic of conversation.

  ‘Ben’s got terribly interested in the whole picker
baby thing. Your mum set him off.’

  ‘We don’t actually know she was a picker baby,’ said Cy, perking up a bit. ‘Why is he so interested?’

  ‘Well, by accident – did I tell you? – we found out about another woman in our village who’d had a baby at the beginning of the war, and as it happens, Ben’s mum is, or was, a hop picker who got into trouble with the Squire’s son. He married her, though, but that’s why Ben’s interested. I told you that, too, surely?’

  ‘Oh, I see. Yes, you did. Must be this bump on the head making me forgetful.’ Cy leant forward. ‘So you know a bit about it?’

  ‘Not a lot. I did ask Sheila about it the other day, you know, and she told me about the Red Cross and so on, and my friend Flo confirmed that, but there doesn’t seem to have been a formal sort of organisation. And of course, if what Sheila says is true, then Cliona wasn’t a picker but a local girl. I wonder if Auntie Dolly would know?’

  ‘Who? Oh, Lisa’s aunt.’ Cy frowned ‘I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her? It might take her mind off Paddy’s death.’

  ‘Do you think so? She is still alive, then?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Cy smiled. ‘Not that I know her well. I thought her name was Polly.’

  ‘Yes, I remember you saying. I’ll see if Sheila’s got her phone number, then Ben can give her a ring.’

  ‘If she does know anything, you will tell me, won’t you?’ Cy said. ‘I’d love to know more about my mum’s family.’

  ‘Of course.’ Libby leant across and patted his arm. ‘Now, is there anything else I can get you?’

  A wistful expression crossed Cy’s face. ‘Steak and kidney pie?’ he said.

  Peter turned round, his eyebrows raised. ‘Aren’t we feeding you well enough?’ he said sharply. Cy’s colour rose in sharp contrast to the bandages.

  ‘Of course, but I suddenly had a hankering for good old British stodge,’ he said. ‘Comfort food.’

  ‘Well, I can’t do pie,’ said Libby, ‘but there’s some of the pudding Ben and I had last night. ‘I’ll bring it round later. Is that all right, Pete?’

  He grinned. ‘Is there enough for two?’

  ‘I forgot! You’re not veggie, are you?’ Libby laughed. ‘I’ll bring it all round, and the rest of the fruit crumble, too. Just get rid of the dishes before Harry comes home!’

  Half an hour later she was back with the food packed in an old trug she’d found in the conservatory.

  ‘Have you got Sheila’s number, then?’ she said, unloading dishes into Harry’s tiny kitchen.

  ‘Here.’ Cy held out his mobile. Libby came back into the sitting room and took it, copying the number into her own phone.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘That’ll keep Ben happy. Do you want me to heat that stuff up?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Peter stood up and stretched. ‘I’m looking forward to a change!’

  ‘How disloyal,’ mocked Libby. ‘Anyway, you have an old fashioned roast at Hetty’s nearly every Sunday.’

  ‘True. And I love my Hal’s cooking. Just I’m a natural carnivore.’ He disappeared into the kitchen.

  ‘So are you feeling any better now?’ asked Libby, perching on the edge of the sofa. ‘Was it just your head they – or he – got?’

  ‘Yes, but on top of the attack last week, they started getting worried about it.’ Cy shrugged, carefully. ‘But it wasn’t as bad as they thought.’

  ‘Well, let’s just pray that there are no more attacks to come and that the police find the oiks who did it.’

  Libby walked slowly home for the second time, wondering about this second attack on Cy. It was odd, really, almost as if the first attack had been something separate altogether. The poison pen letters and this second attack seemed to fit together far better, the work of just one person. The description of any youths Sheila had reported would appear to have no connection to a vicious writer of anonymous letters. And, of course, Patrick had been killed at almost the same time, which argued that it was the same attacker, but he, too, had received letters. Libby scowled at the piles of dirty snow at the roadside and wondered if the police had thought of that, too.

  Of course, she knew perfectly well from her friend Ian Connell that the police usually thought of everything, usually well before the bumbling amateur, but just occasionally, as Harry had suggested after the first of Cy’s attacks, there was something a friend could focus on that the police would ignore. Like Cy’s background, Libby had thought then, but it seemed now that his background, or Josephine’s, however colourful, had nothing to do with the attack, unless – Libby stopped at the corner of Allhallow’s Lane and stared up at the high wall that surrounded the vicarage – unless she was right, and the first attack had nothing to do with either the letters or the second attack.

  ‘Now I’ve got a headache,’ she muttered to herself, and hunching her shoulders, turned the corner and crunched through rutted snow towards number 17.

  She tried out her theory on Ben at lunchtime, when he suggested they should go for a drink.

  ‘I’ve walked up and down to Peter and Harry’s twice already this morning,’ she complained. ‘I’m not doing it again. There’s beer in the conservatory if you want it, or you can go on your own.’

  ‘Charming,’ said Ben.

  ‘Oh, you know what I meant. It’s hard work in all this snow. And eerie. No traffic.’

  ‘All right.’ Ben sighed and sat down to take his boots off. ‘So tell me more about this theory.’

  When she’d finished, by which time he’d fetched and poured a bottle of beer, he looked thoughtful. ‘Possible,’ he said, ‘but I expect the police have thought of that.’

  ‘Yes, so do I,’ said Libby, ‘but it just seems so odd, such a coincidence.’

  ‘The nature of the attacks, too,’ said Ben, getting into the spirit of the thing. ‘The first was a vicious mugging, the second – well, almost ineffectual. Definitely seems like two different attackers.’

  ‘Or just one of the previous gang,’ said Libby. ‘On his own.’

  ‘Not so likely, is it?’ said Ben. ‘I suppose you can’t speak to your pet policeman about this, can you?’

  ‘Of course I can’t. Anyway, he’s your friend, too.’

  ‘Oh, well.’ Ben stretched out his legs and put his glass down beside him. ‘If we’re not going to the pub, can we have a fire?’

  Libby raised her eyebrows. ‘You know where the coal is,’ she said. ‘You can do it.’

  He grunted and stood up. ‘Slave driver.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Libby, following him into the conservatory, ‘I got Sheila’s number for you.’

  ‘Eh? What for?’

  ‘Cy suggested Auntie Dolly might know about the babies.’

  ‘Auntie who?’

  ‘You know, Lisa and Patrick’s aunt. I told you. Sheila said Patrick’s grandmother and aunt moved down from Hoxton. Then Patrick and Lisa’s mum was born after the war.’

  ‘So Dolly might know what happened to the babies? Or the mothers? I take it she’s still alive?’

  ‘Obviously, or Cy wouldn’t have suggested it. What do you think?’

  ‘He thinks Sheila would have her number?’

  ‘Or know how to get hold of her, anyway. Although when I spoke to her she didn’t say much about Auntie Dolly.’

  Ben sat back on his heels after building a little mound of kindling over a firelighter. ‘Worth a try, I suppose,’ he said, ‘although I feel a bit foolish, now. Getting worked up over illegitimate babies born over half a century ago.’

  Libby patted his shoulder. ‘Shows what a sharing, caring, person you really are,’ she said. ‘Want another beer?’

  Libby, Ben and most of the backstage team for Hey, Diddle Diddle spent Sunday morning at the theatre. Harry arrived to tell them that Colin was finally home, and was coming to collect Cy that afternoon.

  ‘So do we have to have him to Hetty’s for lunch?’ asked Ben.

  ‘No. He says we’re to go ahead. He’ll be fine on his own. I
brought some stuff home for the caff for him.’ He made a face at Libby. ‘To counteract the effect of meat pudding and crumble.’

  Libby beamed. ‘Bet he enjoyed it.’

  ‘He did. So did Pete.’ He grinned. ‘If only I wasn’t a committed veggie!’

  ‘So do we know any more about what the police think? Have they been in touch?’ asked Libby.

  Harry shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. We might know more when Colin arrives. I think he was going to speak to them.’

  Libby put forward the theory Ben and she had formulated. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Possible.’ Harry shrugged. ‘But you’re not supposed to be looking into it, now, remember?’

  ‘Just interested,’ said Libby.

  ‘I’ve heard that before,’ said Harry.

  ‘Don’t forget it was you who asked me into this.’ Libby wagged a finger at him. ‘Anyway, now Ben’s got a bee in his bonnet about all these babies –’

  ‘I have not got a bee in my bonnet.’ Ben’s head appeared upside down from the lighting rig. ‘And it’s not all those babies. Only a couple.’

  ‘It’s something for him to do,’ said Libby with a grin. ‘Interesting, too. And despite everything, I’d love to know more about Amy Taylor and Maud Burton – just for interest’s sake. So we’ll leave Cy’s problem to the police. He’ll be fine now Colin’s back and they can go home together.’

  ‘And that’s just what they won’t be doing.’ Peter’s voice came from the back of the auditorium. ‘The police just called. The house has been burgled.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘NOW WHAT?’ SAID HARRY.

  Peter had opened the theatre bar and he, Harry, Ben and Libby sat looking out at the snowy garden area with bottles of beer.

  ‘What do they do?’ said Libby. ‘What does Colin do? Aren’t they letting him into the house, or what?’

  ‘The police have suggested that as the house is now a crime scene, neither Colin nor Cy should stay there. I assume they will have to let them in to fetch clothes and essentials, and presumably they’ll have asked Colin if anything’s missing.’